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The National Council of Ukraine on Television and Radio Broadcasting has not extended licenses and stopped the broadcasting of 36 FM stations of UMH media holding owned by fugitive Ukrainian oligarch Serhiy Kurchenko, according to a member of the council Serhiy Kostinsky.
"In October, the National Council of Ukraine on Television and Radio Broadcasting did not extend the licenses, and also appealed to the court regarding the cancellation of licenses of a number of radio stations that are part of UMH," Kostinsky wrote on Facebook.
According to him, the grounds for the decisions were the holding's failure to submit the relevant documents on time or its non-transparent ownership structure.
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As UNIAN reported earlier, according to the law "On Television and Radio Broadcasting," TV and radio organizations and providers must submit reports on the structure of their ownership to the regulator, the National Council. In case of late submission of the reports, the offender has to pay a fine set at 5% of the total license fee for all his licenses.
UNIAN memo. UMH (Ukrainian Media Holding) includes printed publications and radio stations, as well as large service and entertainment portals, as well as news aggregators. Kurchenko has owned the holding since 2013. In 2014, the prosecutor's office brought him suspicions of tax evasion and major losses inflicted to state-owned companies. During that period, the businessman was put on the EU sanctions list.